When was the last time someone "touched" you in some way and you experienced healing? When was the last time you reached out to someone and she experienced a lessening of her pain, a dispelling of his fear, a decrease in her anxiety, or a sense of hope emerging out of darkness? There are so many ways we are called to "touch" another and God uses our hands/feet/hearts/skills/caring to effect healing. A touch on the shoulder to show we care. A hug of comfort. A massage of those tense shoulder muscles. Our hands stirring nutritious chicken soup. Our feet to serve at the soup kitchen. Our minds to fight for justice for oppressed. Our strength to build a home with Habitat. Our lips to be a conversation partner at VIDA. Our faith to plead with God in intercessory prayer.
Just as Jesus determines to heal, move on, and reach out to other villages, so we are called to move out of our places of comfort and confront the needs for healing all around us. God uses our feeble efforts to do the impossible. When we are weary or rationalize that we have no power for healing, prophet Isaiah reminds us (Isaiah 40: 21-31): "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. God does not faint or grow weary; God's understanding is unsearchable. God gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."
It is our Lord's power and Christ's love that enables us to enflesh the healing - the wholeness and wellbeing - the shalom - that God intends for all humankind.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
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